A map for literary pilgrims

Monday

Dec 18, 2017 at 4:34 PMDec 18, 2017 at 4:34 PM

By Chris Bergeron, Correspondent

You won’t need a GPS to discover some of the Bay State’s greatest writers.

Just follow The Trustees Literary Trail from the site of the secluded cabin of the “Hermit of Ravenswood” in Gloucester to the fields and forests of Bartholomew’s Cobble across the state in Sheffield that inspired Hal Borland’s books about rural New England.

Established last May by The Trustees of Reservations, a nonprofit group that preserves and cares for 116 scenic, natural and cultural properties across the state, the trail is a self-guided tour that shepherds literary pilgrims through 10 sites notable for their landscapes, and the historic homes of authors associated with them.

Joanna Ballantine, vice-president of The Trustees' southwestern region, said the trail’s organizers “wanted to find and make available the stories of literary significance of these incredible places.”

“Our mission is to connect people to the properties and their stories we have been entrusted to preserve,” she said. “The Trustees overarching mission isn’t just to protect sites but to invite people to enjoy them.”

A detailed trail map can be found online at www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/literary-trail/ and printed for the history and highlights of each site.

Along the trail, travelers can visit the houses and farms where Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, William Cullen Bryant and others wrote the tales and poems that still contribute to Massachusetts’ literary heritage.

Five sites are within a 90-minute drive for MetroWest travelers: The Old Manse in Concord, Fruitlands in Harvard, Long Hill in Beverly, Ravenswood Park in Gloucester and Farandnear in Shirley.

The more dispersed western sites range from Bullitt Reservation in Ashfield, through the farm homestead of poet William Cullen Bryant in Cummington, to Mountain Meadows Preserve in Williamstown, before heading south to Monument Mountain in Williamstown and Bartholomew’s Cobble.

While natural sites on the trail can be enjoyed year-round, The Trustees’ historic properties are generally closed for the winter. However, the Old Manse, Fruitlands Museum, Bryant Homestead and Bartholomew’s Cobble are open at select times, offering tours and events of interest to literary explorers.

Ballantine, who grew up next to poet Emily Dickinson’s home in Amherst, said each of the sites has its own literary history, including stories about the writers associated with them and the works they produced.

She observed The Old Manse was the epicenter of two revolutions that shaped American life: the fight to escape British rule that began just hundreds of yards away at the North Bridge with “the shot heard 'round the world,” and the Transcendentalist movement inspired by the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose family owned the house at 269 Monument St.

Just 15 miles away in Harvard, Ballantine said the farmhouse at Fruitlands, where educational reformer Bronson Alcott started a Utopian community in 1843 that included his young daughter, Louisa May, provides “a magical way for visitors to experience” the Transcendentalist dream of living off the land in harmony with nature that still drives the environmental vision.

"Visitors who hope to experience the Transcendental union with nature will enjoy a Solstice Stroll on Thursday, Dec. 21 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. to celebrate the shortest day of the year around a fire pit with traditional refreshments. To register for an event, go to www.thetrustees.org, click on "Things to do" and search by property, region or date for a specific activity.

Cindy Brockway, statewide director of cultural resources for The Trustees, said one of the Literary Trail’s key goals is to help visitors see “how the landscape influenced people who lived there and vice-versa” and how writers responded to those environments.

To illustrate her point, she explained that the wives of Ellery Sedgwick, editor of The Atlantic Monthly, who bought the 114-acre property known as Long Hill in 1916, transformed a summer retreat into a botanical masterpiece.

His wife, horticulturalist Mabel Cabot Sedgwick who wrote the influential “The Garden Month by Month,” designed the landscape features visitors enjoy a century later. His second wife, the former Marjorie Russell, organized the existing gardens into a series of distinct “rooms” characterized by ornaments and statuary that still surround the grand Federal-style house.

“Mabel Sedgwick followed her own advice when she designed the gardens where she hosted famous writers of her day,” said Brockway. “Visiting Long Hill today provides a rich opportunity for visitors to see the symbiotic relationship between people and the landscape.”

Visitors to Ravenswood Park will find miles of trails winding through 600 acres of fern-covered boulders, hemlocks and the Great Magnolia Swamp that was once a refuge to naturalist Mason Augustus Walton, who lived a semi-hermetic life in the woods for nearly two decades at the end of the 19th century.

Brockway described Wilson as “Gloucester’s version of Henry David Thoreau,” a conservationist who found great solace in nature and who published several books and contributed under the byline “The Hermit of Ravenswood” to the magazine that became “Field and Stream.”

For Brockway, “The Literary Trail preserves the memories of the people like Wilson who became part of these properties by telling their stories.”